These two lovely little books are by illustrator, Noriko Sato. They’re very simply made – just an A3 sheet folded lengthways and then into an accordian. I didn’t actually realise til after I got it home that if you fold it right out there’s a poster on the reverse. Thanks Noriko!
What I like about Noriko’s work is that it just looks so effortless. You can see more of her illustration work on her blog here.
I like that her work is mostly about girls in dresses and cups of coffee – I’m a girl in a dress who likes to drink cups of coffee so I can relate. I think it was Noriko that did a little drawing of me while I was minding my stall at the fair – made me look like a Matisse.
This book is not available for purchase online at the moment. I’m sorry to have shown you so many unpurchasable books this week; Japan is just like that – you really need to visit. In case you do here’s a few of my favourite bookstores for you to enjoy. The second hand book district around Jimbocho, Tokyo is also really great.

limart tokyo
aoyama book center tokyo
shibuya publishing booksellers tokyo
morioka shoten tokyo
keibunsha kyoto

I really love this simple little book by Tomoko Yamashita. Tomoko was also lovely to chat with and explained that the tiles are real tiles that she found, photographed and applied to imaginary shapes. The results are odd and beautiful. Some of them remind me a little of the kind of coal heaters you can still find in former east german apartments.
This book will likely be available at Utrecht bookstore in Tokyo in the coming months. Utrecht are the organisers of the fair and their bookstore is well worth a visit – they also have an online store (Japanese only). You can see more of Tomoko’s work – illustration, graphic design, art direction – on her website under news.

This beautiful little zine is by Jun Omori. He was one of my stall neighbours at the fair and I enjoyed watching people react to his work. It’s a stack of 50 loose sheets with illustrations and short comics. He had it printed by JAM printing in Osaka – these guys offer really cheap printing with a limited colour pallet and imperfect registration. They’ve become really popular with designers/artists who make books and paper products in Japan; so much so that you can often recognize JAM colours straight away. Somehow though, Jun’s used really complex and interesting paper and colour choices in this zine and I didn’t even pick up that it was JAM until I asked.
There’s a lot more of Jun’s amazing illustration work to look at on his website (click on the links to the left under Art). His style reminds me a little of Himaa (who was also at the fair this year) or Yokoyama Yuichi but is definitely it’s own thing; really light and uplifting but complex. Jun’s work is not available for purchase online at the moment but I expect he’ll be wildly famous in about five minutes and his work will hopefully be more widely distributed. You might try convincing your local bookstore to stock this book.